The parties ended up in Harris County District Court Judge Randy Wilson’s courtroom last Thursday.

“The judge was informed that a law was passed in the summer of 2013 — House Bill 680 — that appears to permit Billy Martin’s flagpole and insulates him from the lawsuit,” Martin’s lawyer, Lee Thweatt, wrote in an email. “Rather than pick a jury and have me move to dismiss the lawsuit after Forrest Lake Townhouse Association rested its case against Mr. Martin, the judge decided instead to encourage me to file a written motion to dismiss the case.”

Wilson is scheduled to rule on Thweatt’s motion for summary judgement next month.

Daniel Barrera, the lawyer who has been representing the association in the case since last summer, also cited the law as the reason for the delay.

“We needed a little more time to prepare,” he said. “In this case, we want to make sure everything can come out.”

Barrera added that despite Thweatt’s motion, there is “probably going to be a trial.”

Martin, 66, claims he was targeted after hounding HOA leaders about a tattered clubhouse flag. When that ‘Star-Spangled banner’ was replaced, he said association board members told him to remove his flag because it was infringing on the common area or risk $200-a-day fines for attorney’s fees and civil damages.

Martin disagreed with their assessment and refused to dismantle his display. That’s when the association sought a permanent injunction. The petition asserts that the community of more than 200 two-story townhouses will suffer diminishing rental or market values if the pole stays.

In protest, Martin began flying his flag upside down.

The new law says that:

A property owner who has a front yard and who otherwise complies with any permitted property owners’ association regulations may elect to install a flagpole in accordance with either Subsection (b)(2)(A) or Subsection (b)(2)(B).

Those subsections allow a flagpole that is not more than 20 feet tall in the front yard or is attached to any portion of a residential structure owned by the property owner and not maintained by the association. Martin’s flagpole is shorter than 20 feet and is attached to the front of his unit.

Below: Read the original lawsuit and the motion for summary judgement asking for the case to be dismissed.